Windows 7 Just a quick question regarding games...

[Cerberus1991]

Well scratch that, I'm looking for confirmation of a theory. With regards to gaming in Windows 7 is it safe to assume I have to look at Vista's system requirements rather than XP's?

 

[Radenight]

I'd look at Windows 7's system requirements.. They are here: Link Removed

Hopefully this helps.. You'll find there not a lot different than Windows Vista really..

 

[Cerberus1991]

I actually meant the system requirements for games, I'm well aware of Windows 7's Sys Reqs, What I wanted to know is if I wanted to install say... Fallout 3, would I have to look at Fallout 3's System Requirements for vista or Fallout 3's system rqurements for XP?

 

[Highwayman]

To be honest it rare that the specs on game boxes are ever even close to accurate for smooth hi-res gaming...the reccommended spec is usual what i refer to as "barely playable at this spec" GTA4's being the prime example of that...nvidia 8600 / ati 3870....even with a quad core that's not gonna play above 1024x768 at 10fps...LMAO my rule of thumb is simple...take what the highest spec they list on box is, double it (apart from CPU usually if it lists a dualcore or higher) and thats REALISTIC specs for most games.

In regards to Fallout 3's specs, a Nvidia 7900/8800/9800 or better is ideally matched with 3+ gig ram and any decent dual core cpu when playing on Vista/Win7. If you try it on say a budget model (such as the horrible 8200/8300/8400 etc) don't get your hopes up....it will suck.

 

[Cerberus1991]

Update on my theory: I'm not quite sure what spec to follow anymore. I have 1024mb of ddr1 and have just installed the witcher on Windows 7 RTM. The witcher (none enhanced edition) has notoriously demanding graphics requirements, well above it's spec on the box. The minimum, it says, is 1 GB for XP, 1.5 GB for Vista. And guess what: It's running beautifully (Admittedly I turned Superfetch off, one of my most hated featured from Windows Vista). Windows 7 is impressing me more and more each day, XP ran Fallout 3 at decent nick on my PC so I'll be giving that a go next.

 

[Ramos-oo1]

As a rule off thumb.,,,,,

Windows7 is very simalar to windows vista in many ways but 7 has been optimised to run on lower power machines such as net books and laptops. However the end result (as far as gamers are concerned) is that this makes win7 an ideal gaming platform as it free's up more system memory for your games!!! win win!!

As such I'd go with the system spec for vista but take away 500mg from the memory spec.

E.g. crysis warhead....

Vista spec - cpu 3.2GHz, Mem 1.5 gig, Hd 2gig, vid card 256mb.

Windows7 - cpu 3.2GHz, Mem 1 gig, Hd 2gig, vid card 256mb.

However we all know system spec's are misleading and are more like bare minemum spec. If you want to play crysis in it's full glory in directx 10 with a minimum Frame rate of 25 fps+ on a 1920 by 1200 screen you will need.......

Cpu, core 2 @ at least 2.8GHz. Mem 4gig 800mhz ddr2. Vid card Nvidea 280gtx or radeon hd4870x2. Hd nice fast sata2 disk with plenty free space and you will need a 64bit os either vist64 or win7 64bit. allthough i have found win7 slightly faster (probably due to it's lower memory footprint).

@ highwayman.

Your idea about doubling the spec is misleading, i.e if you double the min vga card rating in crysis it would give you a 500mg card wich is still not good enough at high rezolution. really you need a 1gig card for todays high end games esp at high rezolution's and AA.

 

[Highwayman]

Indeeed GTA4 itself requires 1.5gig GPU ram to truely run maxed out (without using hacks or suffering texture popups), BTW i was referring to the GPU doubling NOT the ram on it, for example anything thats say 8400 to run really means at least 8800's and above to play good